The unofficial, unauthorized view of Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org. The Ancestry Insider reports on, defends, and constructively criticizes these two websites and associated topics. The author attempts to fairly and evenly support both.

Monday, April 15, 2013

New FamilySearch Website to Debut

As I wrote this article over the weekend, it appeared FamilySearch still plans to debut its new website today, 15 April 2013.

The AncestryInsider@gmail.com received an invitation to view a beta version of the website. The invitation was directed to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, so it will be interesting to see if the new design is available to the general public. Give it a try (www.familysearch.org) and leave a comment letting everyone know what you find.

The new website highlights photo and story sharing, Family Tree, a new fan chart, and temple opportunities for Church members. According to the email, members of the Church will find their family history experience can start with the Church’s website, www.lds.org.

Click images to enlarge

When a new user registers and views their fan chart, they are prompted to enter basic information about their parents and grandparents. (See images, above.)

When I attempted to upload photos for the first time on the beta website I was given this message:

We're excited to have you join FamilySearch Photos and Stories! Due to the overwhelming response, all of today's invites have been spoken for. Never fear—more will be available tomorrow at 9 a.m. MST. Please check back and we will get you started preserving and sharing your family photos with this exciting new tool. In the meantime, you can view photos that have already been published.

When I viewed the indexing page, I found the page shared progress reports not readily available elsewhere:

That is not entirely true. I just found a special page (https://familysearch.org/billionrecords) showing the number of records that have been indexed. The page shows the count “down” (so to speak) to a billion records. Give the page a few moments and it will start showing the count incrementing. It’s pretty cool, although I think the counting is just for show. Hit F5 to refresh your screen and maybe you get a truer value.

But I digress…

When I clicked the Volunteer link, I saw some interesting information about donating to FamilySearch:

I haven’t seen FamilySearch soliciting donations before. Interesting.

There’s probably lots more interesting things to discover. Check out www.familysearch.org today to see if the new website is public.

You can see the slightly older version of that same page also has a donate link. In fact, I remember looking at an even slightly older version of the volunteer page back when the new-non-classic site came out and it had a donate option then too.

https://familysearch.org/volunteer

I took a screenshot before it goes away, but can't put it in this comment.

Going the way of ancestry.com and all the others who charge for information? I see it coming. I won't be putting my tree on there for others to edit. There are enough wrong trees out there already that lead new researchers down the wrong path. As much trouble as I had sorting through wrong spouses, wrong children, children as spouses, etc. I will let my tree be public at ancestry.com but never put it out in cyberspace to be edited by strangers.

T: I'm about a month behind in leaving a comment here, but I just saw your post tonight. I don't know that your information is any safer on Ancestry.com. Other people may not be able to edit your actual tree, but they can surely very quickly and easily merge chunks from your tree into places they doesn't belong in their own tree. My tree on Ancestry.com was also public until I got tired of trying to get several people (without success) to correct some very glaring errors they created by doing just that. An example: My 4x GGrandfather and family along with some photos I took in England are now grafted into someone's tree where the only similarities were a common name and approximate time frame. The descendants certainly didn't match up! I see that other people with no way to know any better have now in turn grafted bits from that tree into their own. Right or wrong, information in Ancestry.com trees multiplies at an alarming rate! That also leads new researchers astray and there isn't much you can do about it. My tree is now private so they have to contact me before they can "borrow"!

Thanks for the updates on the FamilySearch website ...have been adding names for a couple weeks now and just finished uploading five pictures and attached two of them to my great-great-grandparents. Looks like there changes being made as screens seem to be changing from one minute to the next. I have been an indexing arbitrator for several years now, but am not a member of the LDS Church. Am looking forward to seeing other changes as they are made available.

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The Ancestry Insider is consistently a top ten and readers’ choice award winner. He has been an insider at both the two big genealogy organizations, FamilySearch and Ancestry.com. He was Time Magazine Man of the Year in both 1966 and 2006. And he really is descended from an Indian princess.

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The Ancestry Insider was a readers’ choice for the top four genealogy news and resources blogs, part of Family Tree Magazine’s “40 Best Genealogy Blogs” for 2010. He reports on the two big genealogy organizations, Ancestry.com and FamilySearch. He was named a “Most Popular Genealogy Blogs” by ProGenealogists, and has received Family Tree Magazine’s “101 Best Web Sites” award every year since 2008. A genealogical technologist, the Insider has a post-graduate technology degree and holds a dozen technology patents in the United States and abroad. He has done genealogy since 1972 and has worked in the computer industry since 1978. He was Time Magazine Man of the Year in both 1966 and 2006. And he really is descended from an Indian princess.

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